The current interest in home workshop activities has generated a wide variety of plans for various articles that can be constructed from standard sizes of lumber. The principal material is the usual 2.times.4 and 2.times.6 used in the framing of houses. Actually, the standard dimension of these pieces in present use are 11/2".times.31/2" and 11/2".times.51/2" respectively. One form of plan developed by applicant is a template made as a long piece of uncorrugated cardboard with slots and punched out holes marked to indicate the cutting and drilling points for particular pieces in a project being built. The template has a fold line that embraces one corner of a piece of material. In this position, lines can be drawn through the slots, and marks made at the holes each identified as corresponding to a particular piece. The template is then removed, the cuts made, and holes drilled at the indicated positions.
There are several advantages to this form of pattern, not the least of which is a highly efficient use of the lumber. The obvious simplicity is a very favorable factor, in view of the principal use in the home workshop, where skill may be somewhat less than that of a professional carpenter. To make efficient use of long pieces of lumber, obviously the template has to be of corresponding length. There are not many facilities where the die-cutting of the slots and holes can be made in patterns exceeding four (4) feet in length. Standard 2.times.4 studs are twice that long, and the resulting problem is obvious. Providing special equipment capable of die-cutting patterns eight (8) feet or more in length in one operation is expensive. Another problem encountered in presently available patterns is the absence of any provision for indicating the cutting of compound angles, in which the plane of a cut is disposed at an angle other than ninety (90) degrees to at least one face of the material.